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\begin{document}

\hypertarget{header-n0}{%
\subsection{How To Ask Questions The Smart Way}\label{header-n0}}

\hypertarget{header-n2}{%
\subsubsection{Eric Steven Raymond}\label{header-n2}}

\href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/}{ Thyrsus Enterprises}

\texttt{\textless{}esr@thyrsus.com\textgreater{}}

\hypertarget{header-n6}{%
\subsubsection{Rick Moen}\label{header-n6}}

\texttt{\textless{}respond-auto@linuxmafia.com\textgreater{}}

Copyright © 2001,2006,2014 Eric S. Raymond, Rick Moen

\begin{longtable}[]{@{}lll@{}}
\toprule
\textbf{Revision History} & &\tabularnewline
\midrule
\endhead
Revision 3.10 & 21 May 2014 & esr\tabularnewline
New section on Stack Overflow. & &\tabularnewline
Revision 3.9 & 23 Apr 2013 & esr\tabularnewline
URL fixes. & &\tabularnewline
Revision 3.8 & 19 Jun 2012 & esr\tabularnewline
URL fix. & &\tabularnewline
Revision 3.7 & 06 Dec 2010 & esr\tabularnewline
Helpful hints for ESL speakers. & &\tabularnewline
Revision 3.7 & 02 Nov 2010 & esr\tabularnewline
Several translations have disappeared. & &\tabularnewline
Revision 3.6 & 19 Mar 2008 & esr\tabularnewline
Minor update and new links. & &\tabularnewline
Revision 3.5 & 2 Jan 2008 & esr\tabularnewline
Typo fix and some translation links. & &\tabularnewline
Revision 3.4 & 24 Mar 2007 & esr\tabularnewline
New section, "When asking about code". & &\tabularnewline
Revision 3.3 & 29 Sep 2006 & esr\tabularnewline
Folded in a good suggestion from Kai Niggemann. & &\tabularnewline
Revision 3.2 & 10 Jan 2006 & esr\tabularnewline
Folded in edits from Rick Moen. & &\tabularnewline
Revision 3.1 & 28 Oct 2004 & esr\tabularnewline
Document 'Google is your friend!' & &\tabularnewline
Revision 3.0 & 2 Feb 2004 & esr\tabularnewline
Major addition of stuff about proper etiquette on Web forums. &
&\tabularnewline
\bottomrule
\end{longtable}

\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{0.5pt}\end{center}

\textbf{Table of Contents}

\begin{itemize}
\item
  \href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#translations}{Translations}
\item
  \href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#disclaimer}{Disclaimer}
\item
  \href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#intro}{Introduction}
\item
  \href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#before}{Before
  You Ask}
\item
  \href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#asking}{When
  You Ask}

  \href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#forum}{Choose
  your forum
  carefully}\href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#stackoverflow}{Stack
  Overflow}\href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#usefora}{Web
  and IRC
  forums}\href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#uselists}{As
  a second step, use project mailing
  lists}\href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#bespecific}{Use
  meaningful, specific subject
  headers}\href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#easyreply}{Make
  it easy to
  reply}\href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#writewell}{Write
  in clear, grammatical, correctly-spelled
  language}\href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#formats}{Send
  questions in accessible, standard
  formats}\href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#beprecise}{Be
  precise and informative about your
  problem}\href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#volume}{Volume
  is not
  precision}\href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#idm368}{Don't
  rush to claim that you have found a
  bug}\href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#idm379}{Grovelling
  is not a substitute for doing your
  homework}\href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#symptoms}{Describe
  the problem's symptoms, not your
  guesses}\href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#chronology}{Describe
  your problem's symptoms in chronological
  order}\href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#goal}{Describe
  the goal, not the
  step}\href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#noprivate}{Don't
  ask people to reply by private
  e-mail}\href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#explicit}{Be
  explicit about your
  question}\href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#code}{When
  asking about
  code}\href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#homework}{Don't
  post homework
  questions}\href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#prune}{Prune
  pointless
  queries}\href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#urgent}{Don't
  flag your question as ``Urgent'', even if it is for
  you}\href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#courtesy}{Courtesy
  never hurts, and sometimes
  helps}\href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#followup}{Follow
  up with a brief note on the solution}
\item
  \href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#answers}{How
  To Interpret Answers}

  \href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#rtfm}{RTFM
  and STFW: How To Tell You've Seriously Screwed
  Up}\href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#lesser}{If
  you don't
  understand...}\href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#keepcool}{Dealing
  with rudeness}
\item
  \href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#not_losing}{On
  Not Reacting Like A Loser}
\item
  \href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#classic}{Questions
  Not To Ask}
\item
  \href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#examples}{Good
  and Bad Questions}
\item
  \href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#idm659}{If
  You Can't Get An Answer}
\item
  \href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#idm667}{How
  To Answer Questions in a Helpful Way}
\item
  \href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#idm690}{Related
  Resources}
\item
  \href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#idm696}{Acknowledgements}
\end{itemize}

\hypertarget{header-n141}{%
\subsection{Translations}\label{header-n141}}

Translations:
\href{http://blogofscience.com/perguntas.html}{Brazilo-Portuguese}
\href{https://github.com/ryanhanwu/How-To-Ask-Questions-The-Smart-Way}{Chinese
(Traditional)}
\href{http://scientificachievements.com/jak-se-ptat-chytry-zpusob/}{Czech}
\href{http://docs.jaspervries.nl/smart-questions/}{Dutch}
\href{http://glory4cars.com/edu/kuidas-esitada-kusimusi-nutikas-viis/}{Estonian}
\href{http://www.gnurou.org/documents/smart-questions-fr.html}{French}
\href{http://maxo127.narod.ru/Geo/Articles/smart-questions_ge.html}{Georgian}
\href{https://www.privatkreditsofort.ch/wie-man-fragen-richtig-stellt/}{German}
\href{http://www.dionyziz.com/howto-smart-questions-gr/}{Greek}
\href{http://kntuniversity.org/how-to-ask-questions-the-smart-way/}{Hindi}
\href{http://www.forallworld.com/milyen-kerdeseket-okosan/}{Hungarian}
\href{https://www.chameleonjohn.com/translations/smart-questions-Indonesian}{Indonesion}
\href{http://www.ranvis.com/articles/smart-questions.ja.html}{Japanese}
\href{http://myscres.com/articles/kaip-uzduoti-klausimus-protinga-buda.html}{Lithuanian}
\href{http://rtfm.killfile.pl}{Polish}
\href{https://www.homeyou.com/~edu/perguntar-de-forma-inteligente}{Portuguese}
\href{http://maddog.sitengine.ru/smart-question-ru.html}{Russian}
\href{http://www.sindominio.net/ayuda/preguntas-inteligentes.html}{Spanish}
\href{http://eustudiesweb.com/yak-staviti-zapitannya-rozumno/}{Ukrainian}
\href{http://www.bestcarzin.com/blog/smart-questions-uzb/}{Uzbek} If you
want to copy, mirror, translate, or excerpt this document, please see my
\href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/copying.html}{copying policy}.

\hypertarget{header-n143}{%
\subsection{Disclaimer}\label{header-n143}}

Many project websites link to this document in their sections on how to
get help. That's fine, it's the use we intended --- but if you are a
webmaster creating such a link for your project page, please display
prominently near the link notice that \emph{we are not a help desk for
your project!}

We have learned the hard way that without such a notice, we will
repeatedly be pestered by idiots who think having published this
document makes it our job to solve all the world's technical problems.

If you're reading this document because you need help, and you walk away
with the impression you can get it directly from the authors of this
document, \emph{you} are one of the idiots we are talking about. Don't
ask \emph{us} questions. We'll just ignore you. We are here to show you
how to get help from people who actually know about the software or
hardware you're dealing with, but 99.9\% of the time that will not be
us. Unless you know for \emph{certain} that one of the authors is an
expert on what you're dealing with, leave us alone and everybody will be
happier.

\hypertarget{header-n147}{%
\subsection{Introduction}\label{header-n147}}

In the world of
\href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html}{hackers}, the
kind of answers you get to your technical questions depends as much on
the way you ask the questions as on the difficulty of developing the
answer. This guide will teach you how to ask questions in a way more
likely to get you a satisfactory answer.

Now that use of open source has become widespread, you can often get as
good answers from other, more experienced users as from hackers. This is
a Good Thing; users tend to be just a little bit more tolerant of the
kind of failures newbies often have. Still, treating experienced users
like hackers in the ways we recommend here will generally be the most
effective way to get useful answers out of them, too.

The first thing to understand is that hackers actually like hard
problems and good, thought-provoking questions about them. If we didn't,
we wouldn't be here. If you give us an interesting question to chew on
we'll be grateful to you; good questions are a stimulus and a gift. Good
questions help us develop our understanding, and often reveal problems
we might not have noticed or thought about otherwise. Among hackers,
``Good question!'' is a strong and sincere compliment.

Despite this, hackers have a reputation for meeting simple questions
with what looks like hostility or arrogance. It sometimes looks like
we're reflexively rude to newbies and the ignorant. But this isn't
really true.

What we are, unapologetically, is hostile to people who seem to be
unwilling to think or to do their own homework before asking questions.
People like that are time sinks --- they take without giving back, and
they waste time we could have spent on another question more interesting
and another person more worthy of an answer. We call people like this
``losers'' (and for historical reasons we sometimes spell it
``lusers'').

We realize that there are many people who just want to use the software
we write, and who have no interest in learning technical details. For
most people, a computer is merely a tool, a means to an end; they have
more important things to do and lives to live. We acknowledge that, and
don't expect everyone to take an interest in the technical matters that
fascinate us. Nevertheless, our style of answering questions is tuned
for people who \emph{do} take such an interest and are willing to be
active participants in problem-solving. That's not going to change. Nor
should it; if it did, we would become less effective at the things we do
best.

We're (largely) volunteers. We take time out of busy lives to answer
questions, and at times we're overwhelmed with them. So we filter
ruthlessly. In particular, we throw away questions from people who
appear to be losers in order to spend our question-answering time more
efficiently, on winners.

If you find this attitude obnoxious, condescending, or arrogant, check
your assumptions. We're not asking you to genuflect to us --- in fact,
most of us would love nothing more than to deal with you as an equal and
welcome you into our culture, if you put in the effort required to make
that possible. But it's simply not efficient for us to try to help
people who are not willing to help themselves. It's OK to be ignorant;
it's not OK to play stupid.

So, while it isn't necessary to already be technically competent to get
attention from us, it \emph{is} necessary to demonstrate the kind of
attitude that leads to competence --- alert, thoughtful, observant,
willing to be an active partner in developing a solution. If you can't
live with this sort of discrimination, we suggest you pay somebody for a
commercial support contract instead of asking hackers to personally
donate help to you.

If you decide to come to us for help, you don't want to be one of the
losers. You don't want to seem like one, either. The best way to get a
rapid and responsive answer is to ask it like a person with smarts,
confidence, and clues who just happens to need help on one particular
problem.

(Improvements to this guide are welcome. You can mail suggestions to
\href{mailto:esr@thyrsus.com}{\nolinkurl{esr@thyrsus.com}} or
\href{mailto:respond-auto@linuxmafia.com}{\nolinkurl{respond-auto@linuxmafia.com}}.
Note however that this document is not intended to be a general guide to
\href{http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt}{netiquette}, and we will
generally reject suggestions that are not specifically related to
eliciting useful answers in a technical forum.)

\hypertarget{header-n159}{%
\subsection{Before You Ask}\label{header-n159}}

Before asking a technical question by e-mail, or in a newsgroup, or on a
website chat board, do the following:

\begin{enumerate}
\def\labelenumi{\arabic{enumi}.}
\item
  Try to find an answer by searching the archives of the forum or
  mailing list you plan to post to.
\item
  Try to find an answer by searching the Web.
\item
  Try to find an answer by reading the manual.
\item
  Try to find an answer by reading a FAQ.
\item
  Try to find an answer by inspection or experimentation.
\item
  Try to find an answer by asking a skilled friend.
\item
  If you're a programmer, try to find an answer by reading the source
  code.
\end{enumerate}

When you ask your question, display the fact that you have done these
things first; this will help establish that you're not being a lazy
sponge and wasting people's time. Better yet, display what you have
\emph{learned} from doing these things. We like answering questions for
people who have demonstrated they can learn from the answers.

Use tactics like doing a Google search on the text of whatever error
message you get (searching \href{http://groups.google.com/}{Google
groups} as well as Web pages). This might well take you straight to fix
documentation or a mailing list thread answering your question. Even if
it doesn't, saying ``I googled on the following phrase but didn't get
anything that looked promising'' is a good thing to do in e-mail or news
postings requesting help, if only because it records what searches won't
help. It will also help to direct other people with similar problems to
your thread by linking the search terms to what will hopefully be your
problem and resolution thread.

Take your time. Do not expect to be able to solve a complicated problem
with a few seconds of Googling. Read and understand the FAQs, sit back,
relax and give the problem some thought before approaching experts.
Trust us, they will be able to tell from your questions how much reading
and thinking you did, and will be more willing to help if you come
prepared. Don't instantly fire your whole arsenal of questions just
because your first search turned up no answers (or too many).

Prepare your question. Think it through. Hasty-sounding questions get
hasty answers, or none at all. The more you do to demonstrate that
having put thought and effort into solving your problem before seeking
help, the more likely you are to actually get help.

Beware of asking the wrong question. If you ask one that is based on
faulty assumptions, J. Random Hacker is quite likely to reply with a
uselessly literal answer while thinking ``Stupid question...'', and
hoping the experience of getting what you asked for rather than what you
needed will teach you a lesson.

Never assume you are \emph{entitled} to an answer. You are not; you
aren't, after all, paying for the service. You will earn an answer, if
you earn it, by asking a substantial, interesting, and thought-provoking
question --- one that implicitly contributes to the experience of the
community rather than merely passively demanding knowledge from others.

On the other hand, making it clear that you are able and willing to help
in the process of developing the solution is a very good start. ``Would
someone provide a pointer?'', ``What is my example missing?'', and
``What site should I have checked?'' are more likely to get answered
than ``Please post the exact procedure I should use.'' because you're
making it clear that you're truly willing to complete the process if
someone can just point you in the right direction.

\hypertarget{header-n183}{%
\subsection{When You Ask}\label{header-n183}}

\hypertarget{header-n184}{%
\subsubsection{Choose your forum carefully}\label{header-n184}}

Be sensitive in choosing where you ask your question. You are likely to
be ignored, or written off as a loser, if you:

\begin{itemize}
\item
  post your question to a forum where it's off topic
\item
  post a very elementary question to a forum where advanced technical
  questions are expected, or vice-versa
\item
  cross-post to too many different newsgroups
\item
  post a personal e-mail to somebody who is neither an acquaintance of
  yours nor personally responsible for solving your problem
\end{itemize}

Hackers blow off questions that are inappropriately targeted in order to
try to protect their communications channels from being drowned in
irrelevance. You don't want this to happen to you.

The first step, therefore, is to find the right forum. Again, Google and
other Web-searching methods are your friend. Use them to find the
project webpage most closely associated with the hardware or software
giving you difficulties. Usually it will have links to a FAQ (Frequently
Asked Questions) list, and to project mailing lists and their archives.
These mailing lists are the final places to go for help, if your own
efforts (including \emph{reading} those FAQs you found) do not find you
a solution. The project page may also describe a bug-reporting
procedure, or have a link to one; if so, follow it.

Shooting off an e-mail to a person or forum which you are not familiar
with is risky at best. For example, do not assume that the author of an
informative webpage wants to be your free consultant. Do not make
optimistic guesses about whether your question will be welcome --- if
you're unsure, send it elsewhere, or refrain from sending it at all.

When selecting a Web forum, newsgroup or mailing list, don't trust the
name by itself too far; look for a FAQ or charter to verify your
question is on-topic. Read some of the back traffic before posting so
you'll get a feel for how things are done there. In fact, it's a very
good idea to do a keyword search for words relating to your problem on
the newsgroup or mailing list archives before you post. It may find you
an answer, and if not it will help you formulate a better question.

Don't shotgun-blast all the available help channels at once, that's like
yelling and irritates people. Step through them softly.

Know what your topic is! One of the classic mistakes is asking questions
about the Unix or Windows programming interface in a forum devoted to a
language or library or tool portable across both. If you don't
understand why this is a blunder, you'd be best off not asking any
questions at all until you get it.

In general, questions to a well-selected public forum are more likely to
get useful answers than equivalent questions to a private one. There are
multiple reasons for this. One is simply the size of the pool of
potential respondents. Another is the size of the audience; hackers
would rather answer questions that educate many people than questions
serving only a few.

Understandably, skilled hackers and authors of popular software are
already receiving more than their fair share of mis-targeted messages.
By adding to the flood, you could in extreme cases even be the straw
that breaks the camel's back --- quite a few times, contributors to
popular projects have withdrawn their support because collateral damage
in the form of useless e-mail traffic to their personal accounts became
unbearable.

\hypertarget{header-n203}{%
\subsubsection{Stack Overflow}\label{header-n203}}

Search, \emph{then} ask on Stack Exchange

In recent years, the Stack Exchange community of sites has emerged as a
major resource for answering technical and other questions and is even
the preferred forum for many open-source projects.

Start with a Google search before looking at Stack Exchange; Google
indexes it in real time. There's a very good chance someone has already
asked a similar question, and the Stack Exchange sites are often near
the top of the search results. If you didn't find anything through
Google, search again on the specific site most relevant to your question
(see below). Searching with tags can help narrow down the results.

If you still didn't find anything, post your question on the \emph{one}
site where it's most on-topic. Use the formatting tools, especially for
code, and add tags that are related to the substance of your question
(particularly the name of the programming language, operating system, or
library you're having trouble with). If a commenter asks you for more
information, edit your main post to include it. If any answer is
helpful, click the up arrow to upvote it; if an answer gives a solution
to your problem, click the check under the voting arrows to accept it as
correct.

Stack Exchange has grown to \href{http://stackexchange.com/sites}{over
100 sites}, but here are the most likely candidates:

\begin{itemize}
\item
  Super User is for questions about general-purpose computing. If your
  question isn't about code or programs that you talk to only over a
  network connection, it probably goes here.
\item
  Stack Overflow is for questions about programming.
\item
  Server Fault is for questions about server and network administration.
\end{itemize}

Several projects have their own specific sites, including Android,
Ubuntu, TeX/LaTeX, and SharePoint. Check the Stack Exchange site for an
up-to-date list.

\hypertarget{header-n217}{%
\subsubsection{Web and IRC forums}\label{header-n217}}

Your local user group, or your Linux distribution, may advertise a Web
forum or IRC channel where newbies can get help. (In
non-English-speaking countries newbie forums are still more likely to be
mailing lists.) These are good first places to ask, especially if you
think you may have tripped over a relatively simple or common problem.
An advertised IRC channel is an open invitation to ask questions there
and often get answers in real time.

In fact, if you got the program that is giving you problems from a Linux
distribution (as is common today), it may be better to ask in the
distro's forum/list before trying the program's project forum/list. The
project's hackers may just say, ``use \emph{our} build''.

Before posting to any Web forum, check if it has a Search feature. If it
does, try a couple of keyword searches for something like your problem;
it just might help. If you did a general Web search before (as you
should have), search the forum anyway; your Web-wide search engine might
not have all of this forum indexed recently.

There is an increasing tendency for projects to do user support over a
Web forum or IRC channel, with e-mail reserved more for development
traffic. So look for those channels first when seeking project-specific
help.

In IRC, it's probably best not to dump a long problem description on the
channel first thing; some people interpret this as channel-flooding.
Best to utter a one-line problem description in a way pitched to start a
conversation on the channel.

\hypertarget{header-n223}{%
\subsubsection{As a second step, use project mailing
lists}\label{header-n223}}

When a project has a development mailing list, write to the mailing
list, not to individual developers, even if you believe you know who can
best answer your question. Check the documentation of the project and
its homepage for the address of a project mailing list, and use it.
There are several good reasons for this policy:

\begin{itemize}
\item
  Any question good enough to be asked of one developer will also be of
  value to the whole group. Contrariwise, if you suspect your question
  is too dumb for a mailing list, it's not an excuse to harass
  individual developers.
\item
  Asking questions on the list distributes load among developers. The
  individual developer (especially if he's the project leader) may be
  too busy to answer your questions.
\item
  Most mailing lists are archived and the archives are indexed by search
  engines. If you ask your question on-list and it is answered, a future
  querent could find your question and the answer on the Web instead of
  asking it again.
\item
  If certain questions are seen to be asked often, developers can use
  that information to improve the documentation or the software itself
  to be less confusing. But if those questions are asked in private,
  nobody has the complete picture of what questions are asked most
  often.
\end{itemize}

If a project has both a ``user'' and a ``developer'' (or ``hacker'')
mailing list or Web forum, and you are not hacking on the code, ask in
the ``user'' list/forum. Do not assume that you will be welcome on the
developer list, where they're likely to experience your question as
noise disrupting their developer traffic.

However, if you are \emph{sure} your question is non-trivial, and you
get no answer in the ``user'' list/forum for several days, try the
``developer'' one. You would be well advised to lurk there for a few
daysor at least review the last few days of archived messages, to learn
the local folkways before posting (actually this is good advice on any
private or semi-private list).

If you cannot find a project's mailing list address, but only see the
address of the maintainer of the project, go ahead and write to the
maintainer. But even in that case, don't assume that the mailing list
doesn't exist. Mention in your e-mail that you tried and could not find
the appropriate mailing list. Also mention that you don't object to
having your message forwarded to other people. (Many people believe that
private e-mail should remain private, even if there is nothing secret in
it. By allowing your message to be forwarded you give your correspondent
a choice about how to handle your e-mail.)

\hypertarget{header-n237}{%
\subsubsection{Use meaningful, specific subject
headers}\label{header-n237}}

On mailing lists, newsgroups or Web forums, the subject header is your
golden opportunity to attract qualified experts' attention in around 50
characters or fewer. Don't waste it on babble like ``Please help me''
(let alone ``PLEASE HELP ME!!!!''; messages with subjects like that get
discarded by reflex). Don't try to impress us with the depth of your
anguish; use the space for a super-concise problem description instead.

One good convention for subject headers, used by many tech support
organizations, is ``object - deviation''. The ``object'' part specifies
what thing or group of things is having a problem, and the ``deviation''
part describes the deviation from expected behavior.

\begin{itemize}
\item
  \textbf{Stupid:}

  HELP! Video doesn't work properly on my laptop!
\item
  \textbf{Smart:}

  X.org 6.8.1 misshapen mouse cursor, Fooware MV1005 vid. chipset
\item
  \textbf{Smarter:}

  X.org 6.8.1 mouse cursor on Fooware MV1005 vid. chipset - is misshapen
\end{itemize}

The process of writing an ``object-deviation'' description will help you
organize your thinking about the problem in more detail. What is
affected? Just the mouse cursor or other graphics too? Is this specific
to the X.org version of X? To version 6.8.1? Is this specific to Fooware
video chipsets? To model MV1005? A hacker who sees the result can
immediately understand what it is that you are having a problem with
\emph{and} the problem you are having, at a glance.

More generally, imagine looking at the index of an archive of questions,
with just the subject lines showing. Make your subject line reflect your
question well enough that the next person searching the archive with a
question similar to yours will be able to follow the thread to an answer
rather than posting the question again.

If you ask a question in a reply, be sure to change the subject line to
indicate that you're asking a question. A Subject line that looks like
``Re: test'' or ``Re: new bug'' is less likely to attract useful amounts
of attention. Also, pare quotation of previous messages to the minimum
consistent with cluing in new readers.

Do not simply hit reply to a list message in order to start an entirely
new thread. This will limit your audience. Some mail readers, like mutt,
allow the user to sort by thread and then hide messages in a thread by
folding the thread. Folks who do that will never see your message.

Changing the subject is not sufficient. Mutt, and probably other mail
readers, looks at other information in the e-mail's headers to assign it
to a thread, not the subject line. Instead start an entirely new e-mail.

On Web forums the rules of good practice are slightly different, because
messages are usually much more tightly bound to specific discussion
threads and often invisible outside those threads. Changing the subject
when asking a question in reply is not essential. Not all forums even
allow separate subject lines on replies, and nearly nobody reads them
when they do. However, asking a question in a reply is a dubious
practice in itself, because it will only be seen by those who are
watching this thread. So, unless you are sure you \emph{want} to ask
only the people currently active in the thread, start a new one.

\hypertarget{header-n256}{%
\subsubsection{Make it easy to reply}\label{header-n256}}

Finishing your query with ``Please send your reply to... '' makes it
quite unlikely you will get an answer. If you can't be bothered to take
even the few seconds required to set up a correct Reply-To header in
your mail agent, we can't be bothered to take even a few seconds to
think about your problem. If your mail program doesn't permit this,
\href{http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Mail/muas.html}{get a better mail
program}. If your operating system doesn't support any e-mail programs
that permit this, get a better operating system.

In Web forums, asking for a reply by e-mail is outright rude, unless you
believe the information may be sensitive (and somebody will, for some
unknown reason, let you but not the whole forum know it). If you want an
e-mail copy when somebody replies in the thread, request that the Web
forum send it; this feature is supported almost everywhere under options
like ``watch this thread'', ``send e-mail on answers'', etc.

\hypertarget{header-n259}{%
\subsubsection{Write in clear, grammatical, correctly-spelled
language}\label{header-n259}}

We've found by experience that people who are careless and sloppy
writers are usually also careless and sloppy at thinking and coding
(often enough to bet on, anyway). Answering questions for careless and
sloppy thinkers is not rewarding; we'd rather spend our time elsewhere.

So expressing your question clearly and well is important. If you can't
be bothered to do that, we can't be bothered to pay attention. Spend the
extra effort to polish your language. It doesn't have to be stiff or
formal --- in fact, hacker culture values informal, slangy and humorous
language used with precision. But it has to \emph{be} precise; there has
to be some indication that you're thinking and paying attention.

Spell, punctuate, and capitalize correctly. Don't confuse ``its'' with
``it's'', ``loose'' with ``lose'', or ``discrete'' with ``discreet''.
Don't TYPE IN ALL CAPS; this is read as shouting and considered rude.
(All-smalls is only slightly less annoying, as it's difficult to read.
Alan Cox can get away with it, but you can't.)

More generally, if you write like a semi-literate boob you will very
likely be ignored. So don't use instant-messaging shortcuts. Spelling
"you" as "u" makes you look like a semi-literate boob to save two entire
keystrokes. Worse: writing like a l33t script kiddie hax0r is the
absolute kiss of death and guarantees you will receive nothing but stony
silence (or, at best, a heaping helping of scorn and sarcasm) in return.

If you are asking questions in a forum that does not use your native
language, you will get a limited amount of slack for spelling and
grammar errors --- but no extra slack at all for laziness (and yes, we
can usually spot that difference). Also, unless you know what your
respondent's languages are, write in English. Busy hackers tend to
simply flush questions in languages they don't understand, and English
is the working language of the Internet. By writing in English you
minimize your chances that your question will be discarded unread.

If you are writing in English but it is a second language for you, it is
good form to alert potential respondents to potential language
difficulties and options for getting around them. Examples:

\begin{itemize}
\item
  English is not my native language; please excuse typing errors.
\item
  If you speak \$LANGUAGE, please email/PM me; I may need assistance
  translating my question.
\item
  I am familiar with the technical terms, but some slang expressions and
  idioms are difficult for me.
\item
  I've posted my question in \$LANGUAGE and English. I'll be glad to
  translate responses, if you only use one or the other.
\end{itemize}

\hypertarget{header-n275}{%
\subsubsection{Send questions in accessible, standard
formats}\label{header-n275}}

If you make your question artificially hard to read, it is more likely
to be passed over in favor of one that isn't. So:

\begin{itemize}
\item
  Send plain text mail, not HTML. (It's not hard to
  \href{http://www.birdhouse.org/etc/evilmail.html}{turn off HTML}.)
\item
  MIME attachments are usually OK, but only if they are real content
  (such as an attached source file or patch), and not merely boilerplate
  generated by your mail client (such as another copy of your message).
\item
  Don't send e-mail in which entire paragraphs are single
  multiply-wrapped lines. (This makes it too difficult to reply to just
  part of the message.) Assume that your respondents will be reading
  mail on 80-character-wide text displays and set your line wrap
  accordingly, to something less than 80.
\item
  However, do \emph{not} wrap data (such as log file dumps or session
  transcripts) at any fixed column width. Data should be included as-is,
  so respondents can have confidence that they are seeing what you saw.
\item
  Don't send MIME Quoted-Printable encoding to an English-language
  forum. This encoding can be necessary when you're posting in a
  language ASCII doesn't cover, but many e-mail agents don't support it.
  When they break, all those =20 glyphs scattered through the text are
  ugly and distracting --- or may actively sabotage the semantics of
  your text.
\item
  Never, \emph{ever} expect hackers to be able to read closed
  proprietary document formats like Microsoft Word or Excel. Most
  hackers react to these about as well as you would to having a pile of
  steaming pig manure dumped on your doorstep. Even when they can cope,
  they resent having to do so.
\item
  If you're sending e-mail from a Windows machine, turn off Microsoft's
  problematic ``Smart Quotes'' feature (From Tools \textgreater{}
  AutoCorrect Options, clear the smart quotes checkbox under AutoFormat
  As You Type.). This is so you'll avoid sprinkling garbage characters
  through your mail.
\item
  In Web forums, do not abuse ``smiley'' and ``HTML'' features (when
  they are present). A smiley or two is usually OK, but colored fancy
  text tends to make people think you are lame. Seriously overusing
  smileys and color and fonts will make you come off like a giggly
  teenage girl, which is not generally a good idea unless you are more
  interested in sex than answers.
\end{itemize}

If you're using a graphical-user-interface mail client such as Netscape
Messenger, MS Outlook, or their ilk, beware that it may violate these
rules when used with its default settings. Most such clients have a
menu-based ``View Source'' command. Use this on something in your
sent-mail folder, verifying sending of plain text without unnecessary
attached crud.

\hypertarget{header-n295}{%
\subsubsection{Be precise and informative about your
problem}\label{header-n295}}

\begin{itemize}
\item
  Describe the symptoms of your problem or bug carefully and clearly.
\item
  Describe the environment in which it occurs (machine, OS, application,
  whatever). Provide your vendor's distribution and release level (e.g.:
  ``Fedora Core 7'', ``Slackware 9.1'', etc.).
\item
  Describe the research you did to try and understand the problem before
  you asked the question.
\item
  Describe the diagnostic steps you took to try and pin down the problem
  yourself before you asked the question.
\item
  Describe any possibly relevant recent changes in your computer or
  software configuration.
\item
  If at all possible, provide a way to \emph{reproduce the problem in a
  controlled environment}.
\end{itemize}

Do the best you can to anticipate the questions a hacker will ask, and
answer them in advance in your request for help.

Giving hackers the ability to reproduce the problem in a controlled
environment is especially important if you are reporting something you
think is a bug in code. When you do this, your odds of getting a useful
answer and the speed with which you are likely to get that answer both
improve tremendously.

Simon Tatham has written an excellent essay entitled
\href{http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html}{How to
Report Bugs Effectively}. I strongly recommend that you read it.

\hypertarget{header-n312}{%
\subsubsection{Volume is not precision}\label{header-n312}}

You need to be precise and informative. This end is not served by simply
dumping huge volumes of code or data into a help request. If you have a
large, complicated test case that is breaking a program, try to trim it
and make it as small as possible.

This is useful for at least three reasons. One: being seen to invest
effort in simplifying the question makes it more likely you'll get an
answer, Two: simplifying the question makes it more likely you'll get a
\emph{useful} answer. Three: In the process of refining your bug report,
you may develop a fix or workaround yourself.

\hypertarget{header-n315}{%
\subsubsection{Don't rush to claim that you have found a
bug}\label{header-n315}}

When you are having problems with a piece of software, don't claim you
have found a bug unless you are very, \emph{very} sure of your ground.
Hint: unless you can provide a source-code patch that fixes the problem,
or a regression test against a previous version that demonstrates
incorrect behavior, you are probably not sure enough. This applies to
webpages and documentation, too; if you have found a documentation
``bug'', you should supply replacement text and which pages it should go
on.

Remember, there are many other users that are not experiencing your
problem. Otherwise you would have learned about it while reading the
documentation and searching the Web (you did do that before complaining,
\href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#before}{didn't
you}?). This means that very probably it is you who are doing something
wrong, not the software.

The people who wrote the software work very hard to make it work as well
as possible. If you claim you have found a bug, you'll be impugning
their competence, which may offend some of them even if you are correct.
It's especially undiplomatic to yell ``bug'' in the Subject line.

When asking your question, it is best to write as though you assume
\emph{you} are doing something wrong, even if you are privately pretty
sure you have found an actual bug. If there really is a bug, you will
hear about it in the answer. Play it so the maintainers will want to
apologize to you if the bug is real, rather than so that you will owe
them an apology if you have messed up.

\hypertarget{header-n320}{%
\subsubsection{Grovelling is not a substitute for doing your
homework}\label{header-n320}}

Some people who get that they shouldn't behave rudely or arrogantly,
demanding an answer, retreat to the opposite extreme of grovelling. ``I
know I'm just a pathetic newbie loser, but...''. This is distracting and
unhelpful. It's especially annoying when it's coupled with vagueness
about the actual problem.

Don't waste your time, or ours, on crude primate politics. Instead,
present the background facts and your question as clearly as you can.
That is a better way to position yourself than by grovelling.

Sometimes Web forums have separate places for newbie questions. If you
feel you do have a newbie question, just go there. But don't grovel
there either.

\hypertarget{header-n324}{%
\subsubsection{Describe the problem's symptoms, not your
guesses}\label{header-n324}}

It's not useful to tell hackers what you think is causing your problem.
(If your diagnostic theories were such hot stuff, would you be
consulting others for help?) So, make sure you're telling them the raw
symptoms of what goes wrong, rather than your interpretations and
theories. Let them do the interpretation and diagnosis. If you feel it's
important to state your guess, clearly label it as such and describe why
that answer isn't working for you.

\begin{itemize}
\item
  \textbf{Stupid:}

  I'm getting back-to-back SIG11 errors on kernel compiles, and suspect
  a hairline crack on one of the motherboard traces. What's the best way
  to check for those?
\item
  \textbf{Smart:}

  My home-built K6/233 on an FIC-PA2007 motherboard (VIA Apollo VP2
  chipset) with 256MB Corsair PC133 SDRAM starts getting frequent SIG11
  errors about 20 minutes after power-on during the course of kernel
  compiles, but never in the first 20 minutes. Rebooting doesn't restart
  the clock, but powering down overnight does. Swapping out all RAM
  didn't help. The relevant part of a typical compile session log
  follows.
\end{itemize}

Since the preceding point seems to be a tough one for many people to
grasp, here's a phrase to remind you: "All diagnosticians are from
Missouri." That US state's official motto is "Show me" (earned in 1899,
when Congressman Willard D. Vandiver said "I come from a country that
raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy
eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I'm from Missouri. You've
got to show me.") In diagnosticians' case, it's not a matter of
skepticism, but rather a literal, functional need to see whatever is as
close as possible to the same raw evidence that you see, rather than
your surmises and summaries. Show us.

\hypertarget{header-n334}{%
\subsubsection{Describe your problem's symptoms in chronological
order}\label{header-n334}}

The clues most useful in figuring out something that went wrong often
lie in the events immediately prior. So, your account should describe
precisely what you did, and what the machine and software did, leading
up to the blowup. In the case of command-line processes, having a
session log (e.g., using the script utility) and quoting the relevant
twenty or so lines is very useful.

If the program that blew up on you has diagnostic options (such as -v
for verbose), try to select options that will add useful debugging
information to the transcript. Remember that more is not necessarily
better; try to choose a debug level that will inform rather than
drowning the reader in junk.

If your account ends up being long (more than about four paragraphs), it
might be useful to succinctly state the problem up top, then follow with
the chronological tale. That way, hackers will know what to watch for in
reading your account.

\hypertarget{header-n338}{%
\subsubsection{Describe the goal, not the step}\label{header-n338}}

If you are trying to find out how to do something (as opposed to
reporting a bug), begin by describing the goal. Only then describe the
particular step towards it that you are blocked on.

Often, people who need technical help have a high-level goal in mind and
get stuck on what they think is one particular path towards the goal.
They come for help with the step, but don't realize that the path is
wrong. It can take substantial effort to get past this.

\begin{itemize}
\item
  \textbf{Stupid:}

  How do I get the color-picker on the FooDraw program to take a
  hexadecimal RGB value?
\item
  \textbf{Smart:}

  I'm trying to replace the color table on an image with values of my
  choosing. Right now the only way I can see to do this is by editing
  each table slot, but I can't get FooDraw's color picker to take a
  hexadecimal RGB value.
\end{itemize}

The second version of the question is smart. It allows an answer that
suggests a tool better suited to the task.

\hypertarget{header-n349}{%
\subsubsection{Don't ask people to reply by private
e-mail}\label{header-n349}}

Hackers believe solving problems should be a public, transparent process
during which a first try at an answer can and should be corrected if
someone more knowledgeable notices that it is incomplete or incorrect.
Also, helpers get some of their reward for being respondents from being
seen to be competent and knowledgeable by their peers.

When you ask for a private reply, you are disrupting both the process
and the reward. Don't do this. It's the \emph{respondent's} choice
whether to reply privately --- and if he or she does, it's usually
because he or she thinks the question is too ill-formed or obvious to be
interesting to others.

There is one limited exception to this rule. If you think the question
is such that you are likely to get many answers that are all closely
similar, then the magic words are ``e-mail me and I'll summarize the
answers for the group''. It is courteous to try and save the mailing
list or newsgroup a flood of substantially identical postings --- but
you have to keep the promise to summarize.

\hypertarget{header-n353}{%
\subsubsection{Be explicit about your question}\label{header-n353}}

Open-ended questions tend to be perceived as open-ended time sinks.
Those people most likely to be able to give you a useful answer are also
the busiest people (if only because they take on the most work
themselves). People like that are allergic to open-ended time sinks,
thus they tend to be allergic to open-ended questions.

You are more likely to get a useful response if you are explicit about
what you want respondents to do (provide pointers, send code, check your
patch, whatever). This will focus their effort and implicitly put an
upper bound on the time and energy a respondent must allocate to helping
you. This is good.

To understand the world the experts live in, think of expertise as an
abundant resource and time to respond as a scarce one. The less of a
time commitment you implicitly ask for, the more likely you are to get
an answer from someone really good and really busy.

So it is useful to frame your question to minimize the time commitment
required for an expert to field it --- but this is often not the same
thing as simplifying the question. Thus, for example, ``Would you give
me a pointer to a good explanation of X?'' is usually a smarter question
than ``Would you explain X, please?''. If you have some malfunctioning
code, it is usually smarter to ask for someone to explain what's wrong
with it than it is to ask someone to fix it.

\hypertarget{header-n358}{%
\subsubsection{When asking about code}\label{header-n358}}

Don't ask others to debug your broken code without giving a hint what
sort of problem they should be searching for. Posting a few hundred
lines of code, saying "it doesn't work", will get you ignored. Posting a
dozen lines of code, saying "after line 7 I was expecting to see , but
occurred instead" is much more likely to get you a response.

The most effective way to be precise about a code problem is to provide
a minimal bug-demonstrating test case. What's a minimal test case? It's
an illustration of the problem; just enough code to exhibit the
undesirable behavior and no more. How do you make a minimal test case?
If you know what line or section of code is producing the problematic
behavior, make a copy of it and add just enough supporting code to
produce a complete example (i.e. enough that the source is acceptable to
the compiler/interpreter/whatever application processes it). If you
can't narrow it down to a particular section, make a copy of the source
and start removing chunks that don't affect the problematic behavior.
The smaller your minimal test case is, the better (see
\href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#volume}{the
section called ``Volume is not precision''}).

Generating a really small minimal test case will not always be possible,
but trying to is good discipline. It may help you learn what you need to
solve the problem on your own --- and even when it doesn't, hackers like
to see that you have tried. It will make them more cooperative.

If you simply want a code review, say as much up front, and be sure to
mention what areas you think might particularly need review and why.

\hypertarget{header-n363}{%
\subsubsection{Don't post homework questions}\label{header-n363}}

Hackers are good at spotting homework questions; most of us have done
them ourselves. Those questions are for \emph{you} to work out, so that
you will learn from the experience. It is OK to ask for hints, but not
for entire solutions.

If you suspect you have been passed a homework question, but can't solve
it anyway, try asking in a user group forum or (as a last resort) in a
``user'' list/forum of a project. While the hackers \emph{will} spot it,
some of the advanced users may at least give you a hint.

\hypertarget{header-n366}{%
\subsubsection{Prune pointless queries}\label{header-n366}}

Resist the temptation to close your request for help with
semantically-null questions like ``Can anyone help me?'' or ``Is there
an answer?'' First: if you've written your problem description halfway
competently, such tacked-on questions are at best superfluous. Second:
because they are superfluous, hackers find them annoying --- and are
likely to return logically impeccable but dismissive answers like ``Yes,
you can be helped'' and ``No, there is no help for you.''

In general, asking yes-or-no questions is a good thing to avoid unless
you want a
\href{http://homepage.ntlworld.com./jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/questions-with-yes-or-no-answers.html}{yes-or-no
answer}.

\hypertarget{header-n369}{%
\subsubsection{Don't flag your question as ``Urgent'', even if it is for
you}\label{header-n369}}

That's your problem, not ours. Claiming urgency is very likely to be
counter-productive: most hackers will simply delete such messages as
rude and selfish attempts to elicit immediate and special attention.
Furthermore, the word 'Urgent' (and other similar attempts to grab
attention in the subject line) often triggers spam filters - your
intended recipients might never see it at all!

There is one semi-exception. It can be worth mentioning if you're using
the program in some high-profile place, one that the hackers will get
excited about; in such a case, if you're under time pressure, and you
say so politely, people may get interested enough to answer faster.

This is a very risky thing to do, however, because the hackers' metric
for what is exciting probably differs from yours. Posting from the
International Space Station would qualify, for example, but posting on
behalf of a feel-good charitable or political cause would almost
certainly not. In fact, posting ``Urgent: Help me save the fuzzy baby
seals!'' will reliably get you shunned or flamed even by hackers who
think fuzzy baby seals are important.

If you find this mysterious, re-read the rest of this how-to repeatedly
until you understand it before posting anything at all.

\hypertarget{header-n374}{%
\subsubsection{Courtesy never hurts, and sometimes
helps}\label{header-n374}}

Be courteous. Use ``Please'' and ``Thanks for your attention'' or
``Thanks for your consideration''. Make it clear you appreciate the time
people spend helping you for free.

To be honest, this isn't as important as (and cannot substitute for)
being grammatical, clear, precise and descriptive, avoiding proprietary
formats etc.; hackers in general would rather get somewhat brusque but
technically sharp bug reports than polite vagueness. (If this puzzles
you, remember that we value a question by what it teaches us.)

However, if you've got your technical ducks in a row, politeness does
increase your chances of getting a useful answer.

(We must note that the only serious objection we've received from
veteran hackers to this HOWTO is with respect to our previous
recommendation to use ``Thanks in advance''. Some hackers feel this
connotes an intention not to thank anybody afterwards. Our
recommendation is to either say ``Thanks in advance'' first \emph{and}
thank respondents afterwards, or express courtesy in a different way,
such as by saying ``Thanks for your attention'' or ``Thanks for your
consideration''.)

\hypertarget{header-n379}{%
\subsubsection{Follow up with a brief note on the
solution}\label{header-n379}}

Send a note after the problem has been solved to all who helped you; let
them know how it came out and thank them again for their help. If the
problem attracted general interest in a mailing list or newsgroup, it's
appropriate to post the followup there.

Optimally, the reply should be to the thread started by the original
question posting, and should have `FIXED', `RESOLVED' or an equally
obvious tag in the subject line. On mailing lists with fast turnaround,
a potential respondent who sees a thread about ``Problem X'' ending with
``Problem X - FIXED'' knows not to waste his/her time even reading the
thread (unless (s)he personally finds Problem X interesting) and can
therefore use that time solving a different problem.

Your followup doesn't have to be long and involved; a simple ``Howdy ---
it was a failed network cable! Thanks, everyone. - Bill'' would be
better than nothing. In fact, a short and sweet summary is better than a
long dissertation unless the solution has real technical depth. Say what
action solved the problem, but you need not replay the whole
troubleshooting sequence.

For problems with some depth, it is appropriate to post a summary of the
troubleshooting history. Describe your final problem statement. Describe
what worked as a solution, and indicate avoidable blind alleys
\emph{after that}. The blind alleys should come after the correct
solution and other summary material, rather than turning the follow-up
into a detective story. Name the names of people who helped you; you'll
make friends that way.

Besides being courteous and informative, this sort of followup will help
others searching the archive of the mailing-list/newsgroup/forum to know
exactly which solution helped you and thus may also help them.

Last, and not least, this sort of followup helps everybody who assisted
feel a satisfying sense of closure about the problem. If you are not a
techie or hacker yourself, trust us that this feeling is very important
to the gurus and experts you tapped for help. Problem narratives that
trail off into unresolved nothingness are frustrating things; hackers
itch to see them resolved. The goodwill that scratching that itch earns
you will be very, very helpful to you next time you need to pose a
question.

Consider how you might be able to prevent others from having the same
problem in the future. Ask yourself if a documentation or FAQ patch
would help, and if the answer is yes send that patch to the maintainer.

Among hackers, this sort of good followup behavior is actually more
important than conventional politeness. It's how you get a reputation
for playing well with others, which can be a very valuable asset.

\hypertarget{header-n388}{%
\subsection{How To Interpret Answers}\label{header-n388}}

\hypertarget{header-n389}{%
\subsubsection{RTFM and STFW: How To Tell You've Seriously Screwed
Up}\label{header-n389}}

There is an ancient and hallowed tradition: if you get a reply that
reads ``RTFM'', the person who sent it thinks you should have Read The
Fucking Manual. He or she is almost certainly right. Go read it.

RTFM has a younger relative. If you get a reply that reads ``STFW'', the
person who sent it thinks you should have Searched The Fucking Web. He
or she is almost certainly right. Go search it. (The milder version of
this is when you are told ``Google is your friend!'')

In Web forums, you may also be told to search the forum archives. In
fact, someone may even be so kind as to provide a pointer to the
previous thread where this problem was solved. But do not rely on this
consideration; do your archive-searching before asking.

Often, the person telling you to do a search has the manual or the web
page with the information you need open, and is looking at it as he or
she types. These replies mean that the responder thinks (a) the
information you need is easy to find, and (b) you will learn more if you
seek out the information than if you have it spoon-fed to you.

You shouldn't be offended by this; by hacker standards, your respondent
is showing you a rough kind of respect simply by not ignoring you. You
should instead be thankful for this grandmotherly kindness.

\hypertarget{header-n395}{%
\subsubsection{If you don't understand...}\label{header-n395}}

If you don't understand the answer, do not immediately bounce back a
demand for clarification. Use the same tools that you used to try and
answer your original question (manuals, FAQs, the Web, skilled friends)
to understand the answer. Then, if you still need to ask for
clarification, exhibit what you have learned.

For example, suppose I tell you: ``It sounds like you've got a stuck
zentry; you'll need to clear it.'' Then: here's a \emph{bad} followup
question: ``What's a zentry?'' Here's a \emph{good} followup question:
``OK, I read the man page and zentries are only mentioned under the -z
and -p switches. Neither of them says anything about clearing zentries.
Is it one of these or am I missing something here?''

\hypertarget{header-n398}{%
\subsubsection{Dealing with rudeness}\label{header-n398}}

Much of what looks like rudeness in hacker circles is not intended to
give offense. Rather, it's the product of the direct,
cut-through-the-bullshit communications style that is natural to people
who are more concerned about solving problems than making others feel
warm and fuzzy.

When you perceive rudeness, try to react calmly. If someone is really
acting out, it is very likely a senior person on the list or newsgroup
or forum will call him or her on it. If that \emph{doesn't} happen and
you lose your temper, it is likely that the person you lose it at was
behaving within the hacker community's norms and \emph{you} will be
considered at fault. This will hurt your chances of getting the
information or help you want.

On the other hand, you will occasionally run across rudeness and
posturing that is quite gratuitous. The flip-side of the above is that
it is acceptable form to slam real offenders quite hard, dissecting
their misbehavior with a sharp verbal scalpel. Be very, very sure of
your ground before you try this, however. The line between correcting an
incivility and starting a pointless flamewar is thin enough that hackers
themselves not infrequently blunder across it; if you are a newbie or an
outsider, your chances of avoiding such a blunder are low. If you're
after information rather than entertainment, it's better to keep your
fingers off the keyboard than to risk this.

(Some people assert that many hackers have a mild form of autism or
Asperger's Syndrome, and are actually missing some of the brain
circuitry that lubricates ``normal'' human social interaction. This may
or may not be true. If you are not a hacker yourself, it may help you
cope with our eccentricities if you think of us as being brain-damaged.
Go right ahead. We won't care; we \emph{like} being whatever it is we
are, and generally have a healthy skepticism about clinical labels.)

Jeff Bigler's observations about
\href{http://www.mit.edu/~jcb/tact.html}{tact filters} are also relevant
and worth reading.

In the next section, we'll talk about a different issue; the kind of
``rudeness'' you'll see when \emph{you} misbehave.

\hypertarget{header-n405}{%
\subsection{On Not Reacting Like A Loser}\label{header-n405}}

Odds are you'll screw up a few times on hacker community forums --- in
ways detailed in this article, or similar. And you'll be told exactly
how you screwed up, possibly with colourful asides. In public.

When this happens, the worst thing you can do is whine about the
experience, claim to have been verbally assaulted, demand apologies,
scream, hold your breath, threaten lawsuits, complain to people's
employers, leave the toilet seat up, etc. Instead, here's what you do:

Get over it. It's normal. In fact, it's healthy and appropriate.

Community standards do not maintain themselves: They're maintained by
people actively applying them, visibly, \emph{in public}. Don't whine
that all criticism should have been conveyed via private e-mail: That's
not how it works. Nor is it useful to insist you've been personally
insulted when someone comments that one of your claims was wrong, or
that his views differ. Those are loser attitudes.

There have been hacker forums where, out of some misguided sense of
hyper-courtesy, participants are banned from posting any fault-finding
with another's posts, and told ``Don't say anything if you're unwilling
to help the user.'' The resulting departure of clueful participants to
elsewhere causes them to descend into meaningless babble and become
useless as technical forums.

Exaggeratedly ``friendly'' (in that fashion) or useful: Pick one.

Remember: When that hacker tells you that you've screwed up, and (no
matter how gruffly) tells you not to do it again, he's acting out of
concern for (1) you and (2) his community. It would be much easier for
him to ignore you and filter you out of his life. If you can't manage to
be grateful, at least have a little dignity, don't whine, and don't
expect to be treated like a fragile doll just because you're a newcomer
with a theatrically hypersensitive soul and delusions of entitlement.

Sometimes people will attack you personally, flame without an apparent
reason, etc., even if you don't screw up (or have only screwed up in
their imagination). In this case, complaining is the way to
\emph{really} screw up.

These flamers are either lamers who don't have a clue but believe
themselves to be experts, or would-be psychologists testing whether
you'll screw up. The other readers either ignore them, or find ways to
deal with them on their own. The flamers' behavior creates problems for
themselves, which don't have to concern you.

Don't let yourself be drawn into a flamewar, either. Most flames are
best ignored --- after you've checked whether they are really flames,
not pointers to the ways in which you have screwed up, and not cleverly
ciphered answers to your real question (this happens as well).

\hypertarget{header-n416}{%
\subsection{Questions Not To Ask}\label{header-n416}}

Here are some classic stupid questions, and what hackers are thinking
when they don't answer them.

\begin{itemize}
\item
  Q:
  \href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#idm551}{Where
  can I find program or resource X?}
\item
  Q:
  \href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#idm557}{How
  can I use X to do Y?}
\item
  Q:
  \href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#idm562}{How
  can I configure my shell prompt?}
\item
  Q:
  \href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#idm568}{Can
  I convert an AcmeCorp document into a TeX file using the Bass-o-matic
  file converter?}
\item
  Q:
  \href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#idm573}{My
  \{program, configuration, SQL statement\} doesn't work}
\item
  Q:
  \href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#idm585}{I'm
  having problems with my Windows machine. Can you help?}
\item
  Q:
  \href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#idm592}{My
  program doesn't work. I think system facility X is broken.}
\item
  Q:
  \href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#idm597}{I'm
  having problems installing Linux or X. Can you help?}
\item
  Q:
  \href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#idm606}{How
  can I crack root/steal channel-ops privileges/read someone's e-mail?}
\end{itemize}

\begin{longtable}[]{@{}ll@{}}
\toprule
\textbf{Q:} & Where can I find program or resource X?\tabularnewline
\midrule
\endhead
\textbf{A:} & The same place I'd find it, fool --- at the other end of a
web search. Ghod, doesn't everybody know how to use
\href{http://www.google.com/}{Google} yet?\tabularnewline
\textbf{Q:} & How can I use X to do Y?\tabularnewline
\textbf{A:} & If what you want is to do Y, you should ask that question
without pre-supposing the use of a method that may not be appropriate.
Questions of this form often indicate a person who is not merely
ignorant about X, but confused about what problem Y they are solving and
too fixated on the details of their particular situation. It is
generally best to ignore such people until they define their problem
better.\tabularnewline
\textbf{Q:} & How can I configure my shell prompt?\tabularnewline
\textbf{A:} & If you're smart enough to ask this question, you're smart
enough to
\href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#rtfm}{RTFM}
and find out yourself.\tabularnewline
\textbf{Q:} & Can I convert an AcmeCorp document into a TeX file using
the Bass-o-matic file converter?\tabularnewline
\textbf{A:} & Try it and see. If you did that, you'd (a) learn the
answer, and (b) stop wasting my time.\tabularnewline
\textbf{Q:} & My \{program, configuration, SQL statement\} doesn't
work\tabularnewline
\textbf{A:} & This is not a question, and I'm not interested in playing
Twenty Questions to pry your actual question out of you --- I have
better things to do. On seeing something like this, my reaction is
normally of one of the following:do you have anything else to add to
that?oh, that's too bad, I hope you get it fixed.and this has exactly
what to do with me?\tabularnewline
\textbf{Q:} & I'm having problems with my Windows machine. Can you
help?\tabularnewline
\textbf{A:} & Yes. Throw out that Microsoft trash and install an
open-source operating system like Linux or BSD.Note: you \emph{can} ask
questions related to Windows machines if they are about a program that
does have an official Windows build, or interacts with Windows machines
(i.e., Samba). Just don't be surprised by the reply that the problem is
with Windows and not the program, because Windows is so broken in
general that this is very often the case.\tabularnewline
\textbf{Q:} & My program doesn't work. I think system facility X is
broken.\tabularnewline
\textbf{A:} & While it is possible that you are the first person to
notice an obvious deficiency in system calls and libraries heavily used
by hundreds or thousands of people, it is rather more likely that you
are utterly clueless. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary
evidence; when you make a claim like this one, you must back it up with
clear and exhaustive documentation of the failure case.\tabularnewline
\textbf{Q:} & I'm having problems installing Linux or X. Can you
help?\tabularnewline
\textbf{A:} & No. I'd need hands-on access to your machine to
troubleshoot this. Go ask your local Linux user group for hands-on help.
(You can find a list of user groups
\href{http://www.linux.org/groups/index.html}{here}.)Note: questions
about installing Linux may be appropriate if you're on a forum or
mailing list about a particular distribution, and the problem is with
\emph{that} distro; or on local user groups forums. In this case, be
sure to describe the exact details of the failure. But do careful
searching first, with "linux" and \emph{all} suspicious pieces of
hardware.\tabularnewline
\textbf{Q:} & How can I crack root/steal channel-ops privileges/read
someone's e-mail?\tabularnewline
\textbf{A:} & You're a lowlife for wanting to do such things and a moron
for asking a hacker to help you.\tabularnewline
\bottomrule
\end{longtable}

\hypertarget{header-n493}{%
\subsection{Good and Bad Questions}\label{header-n493}}

Finally, I'm going to illustrate how to ask questions in a smart way by
example; pairs of questions about the same problem, one asked in a
stupid way and one in a smart way.

\begin{itemize}
\item
  \textbf{Stupid:} Where can I find out stuff about the Foonly
  Flurbamatic?

  This question just begs for
  \href{http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html\#rtfm}{"STFW"}
  as a reply.
\item
  \textbf{Smart:} I used Google to try to find ``Foonly Flurbamatic
  2600'' on the Web, but I got no useful hits. Can I get a pointer to
  programming information on this device?

  This one has already STFWed, and sounds like there might be a real
  problem.
\item
  \textbf{Stupid:} I can't get the code from project foo to compile. Why
  is it broken?

  The querent assumes that somebody else screwed up. Arrogant git...
\item
  \textbf{Smart:} The code from project foo doesn't compile under Nulix
  version 6.2. I've read the FAQ, but it doesn't have anything in it
  about Nulix-related problems. Here's a transcript of my compilation
  attempt; is it something I did?

  The querent has specified the environment, read the FAQ, is showing
  the error, and is not assuming his problems are someone else's fault.
  This one might be worth some attention.
\item
  \textbf{Stupid:} I'm having problems with my motherboard. Can anybody
  help?

  J. Random Hacker's response to this is likely to be ``Right. Do you
  need burping and diapering, too?'' followed by a punch of the delete
  key.
\item
  \textbf{Smart:} I tried X, Y, and Z on the S2464 motherboard. When
  that didn't work, I tried A, B, and C. Note the curious symptom when I
  tried C. Obviously the florbish is grommicking, but the results aren't
  what one might expect. What are the usual causes of grommicking on
  Athlon MP motherboards? Anybody got ideas for more tests I can run to
  pin down the problem?

  This person, on the other hand, seems worthy of an answer. He/she has
  exhibited problem-solving intelligence rather than passively waiting
  for an answer to drop from on high.
\end{itemize}

In the last question, notice the subtle but important difference between
demanding ``Give me an answer'' and ``Please help me figure out what
additional diagnostics I can run to achieve enlightenment.''

In fact, the form of that last question is closely based on a real
incident that happened in August 2001 on the linux-kernel mailing list
(lkml). I (Eric) was the one asking the question that time. I was seeing
mysterious lockups on a Tyan S2462 motherboard. The list members
supplied the critical information I needed to solve them.

By asking the question in the way I did, I gave people something to chew
on; I made it easy and attractive for them to get involved. I
demonstrated respect for my peers' ability and invited them to consult
with me as a peer. I also demonstrated respect for the value of their
time by telling them the blind alleys I had already run down.

Afterwards, when I thanked everyone and remarked how well the process
had worked, an lkml member observed that he thought it had worked not
because I'm a ``name'' on that list, but because I asked the question in
the proper form.

Hackers are in some ways a very ruthless meritocracy; I'm certain he was
right, and that if I \emph{had} behaved like a sponge I would have been
flamed or ignored no matter who I was. His suggestion that I write up
the whole incident as instruction to others led directly to the
composition of this guide.

\hypertarget{header-n519}{%
\subsection{If You Can't Get An Answer}\label{header-n519}}

If you can't get an answer, please don't take it personally that we
don't feel we can help you. Sometimes the members of the asked group may
simply not know the answer. No response is not the same as being
ignored, though admittedly it's hard to spot the difference from
outside.

In general, simply re-posting your question is a bad idea. This will be
seen as pointlessly annoying. Have patience: the person with your answer
may be in a different time-zone and asleep. Or it may be that your
question wasn't well-formed to begin with.

There are other sources of help you can go to, often sources better
adapted to a novice's needs.

There are many online and local user groups who are enthusiasts about
the software, even though they may never have written any software
themselves. These groups often form so that people can help each other
and help new users.

There are also plenty of commercial companies you can contract with for
help, both large and small. Don't be dismayed at the idea of having to
pay for a bit of help! After all, if your car engine blows a head
gasket, chances are you would take it to a repair shop and pay to get it
fixed. Even if the software didn't cost you anything, you can't expect
that support to always come for free.

For popular software like Linux, there are at least 10,000 users per
developer. It's just not possible for one person to handle the support
calls from over 10,000 users. Remember that even if you have to pay for
support, you are still paying much less than if you had to buy the
software as well (and support for closed-source software is usually more
expensive and less competent than support for open-source software).

\hypertarget{header-n526}{%
\subsection{How To Answer Questions in a Helpful
Way}\label{header-n526}}

\emph{Be gentle.} Problem-related stress can make people seem rude or
stupid even when they're not.

\emph{Reply to a first offender off-line.} There is no need of public
humiliation for someone who may have made an honest mistake. A real
newbie may not know how to search archives or where the FAQ is stored or
posted.

\emph{If you don't know for sure, say so!} A wrong but
authoritative-sounding answer is worse than none at all. Don't point
anyone down a wrong path simply because it's fun to sound like an
expert. Be humble and honest; set a good example for both the querent
and your peers.

\emph{If you can't help, don't hinder.} Don't make jokes about
procedures that could trash the user's setup --- the poor sap might
interpret these as instructions.

\emph{Ask probing questions to elicit more details.} If you're good at
this, the querent will learn something --- and so might you. Try to turn
the bad question into a good one; remember we were all newbies once.

While muttering RTFM is sometimes justified when replying to someone who
is just a lazy slob, a pointer to documentation (even if it's just a
suggestion to google for a key phrase) is better.

\emph{If you're going to answer the question at all, give good value.}
Don't suggest kludgy workarounds when somebody is using the wrong tool
or approach. Suggest good tools. Reframe the question.

Answer the actual question! If the querent has been so thorough as to do
his or her research and has included in the query that X, Y, Z, A, B,
and C have already been tried without good result, it is supremely
unhelpful to respond with ``Try A or B,'' or with a link to something
that only says, ``Try X, Y, Z, A, B, or C.''.

\emph{Help your community learn from the question.} When you field a
good question, ask yourself ``How would the relevant documentation or
FAQ have to change so that nobody has to answer this again?'' Then send
a patch to the document maintainer.

If you did research to answer the question, \emph{demonstrate your
skills rather than writing as though you pulled the answer out of your
butt.} Answering one good question is like feeding a hungry person one
meal, but teaching them research skills by example is showing them how
to grow food for a lifetime.

\hypertarget{header-n537}{%
\subsection{Related Resources}\label{header-n537}}

If you need instruction in the basics of how personal computers, Unix,
and the Internet work, see
\href{http://en.tldp.org/HOWTO/Unix-and-Internet-Fundamentals-HOWTO/}{
The Unix and Internet Fundamentals HOWTO}.

When you release software or write patches for software, try to follow
the guidelines in the
\href{http://en.tldp.org/HOWTO/Software-Release-Practice-HOWTO/index.html}{
Software Release Practice HOWTO}.

\hypertarget{header-n540}{%
\subsection{Acknowledgements}\label{header-n540}}

Evelyn Mitchell contributed some example stupid questions and inspired
the ``How To Give A Good Answer'' section. Mikhail Ramendik contributed
some particularly valuable suggestions for improvements.

\end{document}
